monsters together
by found dove in a soapless place
Summary: Phone calls at two in the morning tether her to memories she would rather forget, and yet at the same time, keep her from caving in on herself.


_**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. **_

**monsters together**

…

_Phone calls at two in the morning tether her to memories she would rather forget, and yet at the same time, keep her from caving in on herself._

_._

_._

_._

**I**

Skye is too afraid to admit she's lonely.

Koenig, Hunter and the rest becoming warier around her –she can take that. She understands, and it doesn't bother her much. She hasn't let anyone in since after the rise of HYDRA, so their presence cannot be missed. However, she hadn't been counting on her teammates –_her family_ –treating her differently.

Fitzsimmons gives her forced, friendly, unsure smiles when they pass her at any time other than their weekly examination, before babbling an excuse about further research and taking off to the safety of their laboratory. May is not visibly colder, but tenses when Skye makes any sudden movements. It's a sinking feeling when she realizes that to them, she has become both another specimen in a petri dish to be examined, and a time bomb that could go off at any minute. Skye cannot fault them for something they cannot help. There have been too many incidents of her powers going out of control and the Bus nearly plummeting into the ocean, or the Playground crumbling over them.

Coulson isn't around often. Skye figures he's got his hands full, doing damage control and running what's left of S.H.I.E.L.D. He passes by to drop off instructions and receive her reports. There isn't much for her to do. She's not allowed on any field missions. When they need her, she works from the safety of her computer in her bunk. Skye figures they think stressing her out might trigger another reaction. For once, she doesn't utter a word of complaint, no pop culture reference or quip. She doesn't think she has the right to, not when she is a walking weapon of mass destruction, not when she is the reason Trip does not even have a body to bury.

Admitting would mean that something's changed; everything's changed. Everyone is too busy trying to pick up the broken pieces to notice that she is crumbling at the seams. She puts on her best Melinda May face and carries on as though this is how she wants things to be. The cellphone beside her rings for the fourth time that day and she does not even think of answering it.

She counts the ceiling tiles until she falls asleep.

.

.

.

Even with the various combinations of digits from what must be at least a dozen stolen phones, she always knows who is calling. She never picks up. Only once before did her fingers ever ghost over the screen, but instead she chucked it against the wall and the walls began to shake.

It is 2:17 am. She presses the last number on her missed calls. The call log says it called her just a couple of hours ago, so she figures it hasn't been discarded yet. "Leave me alone," she hisses as soon as the person on the other end picks up.

The voice yawns before answering huskily, "Who is this?"

She rolls her eyes. "You're really bad at this."

The tone changes immediately. "Couldn't sleep, huh?" the voice sounds amused.

"How did you get access to this number? All our signals are on encrypted lines." She asks the question even though she already knows the answer –maybe it will absolve her of some of the guilt she feels.

"I taught you some of my tricks, you taught me some of yours, remember? Although, I've gotta admit, yours have been more useful than mine as of late." The knowledge that her hacking techniques are being used for nefarious purposes does not put her in a better mood. She makes a mental note to alert Coulson in the morning.

"What do you want, Ward?" her voice is hard and brittle, just like it had been those times in his jail cell.

There is a pause before the line crackles again. "How are you?" he asks, and the caution in his voice is clear. It's another person dancing on eggshells around her, but with him at least, she feels like it is necessary. She's satisfied that he doesn't feel comfortable speaking to her, because that would only serve to piss her off. He doesn't speak for a while. She waits for a few moments before blinking her eyes in disbelief.

"That's it?" she asks incredulously. He'd probably lost enough blood to become at least a little delusional. He was slipping. "You risked your location getting traced for that?"

"Does it earn me any forgiveness points?"

The unwanted image of his face scrunched up hopefully like a puppy waiting for a treat disgusts her. It also awakens an ache of longing in her gut that she viciously stamps down the second she recognizes it. Staying alive for as long as she has is a feat only managed with the right amount of suspicion. Her status as Inhuman is another thing on the list of things that have changed.

"What's your angle?" she asks, and part of her is sure that she only does so hoping that it hurts him. It's also to answer his last question.

"No agenda," he replies quickly. "I just…I just wanted to know you're okay."

Her blood runs cold. There is a low rumble of anger resonating within her, and it spills out. The ground begins to tremble. The quake isn't enough to wake people, but Skye is aware of it. She screws her eyes shut and concentrates desperately on her breathing, which gets more ragged by the second. The watch she laid on the edge of her bedside table falls down. He doesn't have the right to do that anymore.

_How dare he. _

"Skye." His voice is firm and clear. Everything that happened ceases to exist for just a fraction of a second to listen to the way he says her name, and it makes him hate him so much more when she remembers again what he's done. The shaking subsides.

"I'm fine," she replies harshly. It isn't fair that Ward is the only one who gets to lie.

"I see," he replies, and Skye hates him again. It isn't fair that Ward knows when she is lying. There is a long pause before he speaks again, and the way his voice is gentle and soft and so disgustingly _lying_ – "You should…" She hangs up.

_Get some rest. _

.

.

.

He doesn't call her the next day. Simmons passes her a plate of pancakes for breakfast and smiles at her. They talk for a while, mostly about what Fitzsimmons have discovered about her powers, and a little about Fitz. Fitz practically lives in the laboratory "–has all his meals there, a violation of fifth grade laboratory safety," Jemma rants, and Skye pats her shoulder awkwardly. The biochemist is still a bit twitchy around her, but things are slowly falling back in place and it makes Skye happy. Skye feels lighter as Jemma waves goodbye before running to her holograms and Erlenmeyer flasks.

She successfully decodes the files on Jasper Sitwell's hard drive and produces a list of Hydra agents situated in positions of power, and Coulson tells her she did a good job. She meets Bobbi while the blonde is on her way out for a mission, and the older woman asks if she'd be interested in sparring when she gets back. It's a good day. Skye pretends not to notice when she catches herself staring at her phone.

She returns from the gym at around one in the morning with bruises on her knuckles. It's an odd hour to take a shower, but she relishes in the cold water numbing her aching muscles. She sits on her bed, leaning against the headboard with her phone in her lap. Skye waits.

At exactly 2 am, it begins to vibrate. She counts to five before picking up.

"What now?" she says in a tired voice, like a parent arriving home from work, listening to their child's report of a new toy in the market, ready to say no when they stop talking.

"Oh. I didn't think you'd pick up again," Ward says, and he sounds pleasantly surprised.

"I figured picking up once would make you stop bothering me the rest of the day. Enduring your voice for thirty seconds seemed less annoying."

"Fair enough," he replies, and she can picture him smiling, can see the laugh lines around his sinister brown eyes.

"You're in a good mood. I'm reasonably paranoid. Is someone dead? Did you successfully rob a bank?" she deadpans.

"Nope. Just happy to hear your voice," he tells her unabashedly, and it throws her off guard a little bit. _It's true, and so will be every word I say to you for the rest of my life_. "You're talking more. You sound a bit like your old self." Skye decides to make a conscious effort to talk as little as possible. Ward seems to sense this as soon as she misses her retort's cue.

"How are you?"

"I'm…" Everything is so familiar, and it feels almost like before, the way she wants it to be. That's what makes it feel so wrong. She blurts out, "Ward, I shot you. "

She hears him exhale deeply. "Yep, I remember that."

"I don't regret doing it," she says icily, because she doesn't want him to get the wrong idea. "It's just…it doesn't make sense. Do you usually ask people 'hey, how was your day' after they put four in you?"

"It only takes one in the right place to make sure they wouldn't be able to ask anything afterwards, Skye." He's implying something she doesn't like.

"Maybe next time I won't miss."

"I don't think you missed the first time." Skye grips the covers of her bunk bed tightly, until she can feel her nails against her palm. "They were a bitch to get out, if it makes you feel any better. It hurt like hell and I was in bed for a week. I could only start moving around about four days ago." It does make her feel a little better. "There was an unfortunate shortage of alien blood at the pharmacy."

"That's too bad. As it turns out, I have a pretty good supply of magical alien blood flowing inside me. But hey, you already knew that, right?" she says. A question occurs to her. She sits up straighter and speaks before thinking. "Did you know what I was before what happened in the city?"

"Yes."

"Since when?" she asks, on edge.

"Just before Garrett died," he says. His tone changes to resignation, and it is clear he knows where this is headed.

"Why didn't you say anything?" she spits out. "All those hours in your cell, all those questions, all those times where you promised you would tell me the truth –it was all bullshit, wasn't it? Because the truth is, you're only helpful when it helps you. You held out just so you could keep on being useful until you made your next move."

"It's not like that, Skye. I didn't know anything. All I knew was that there was something different about you, and I swear, I was going to tell you. It's like how I didn't tell you what your father was right away. It would have only upset you," he says in desperation.

"Well guess what? I went looking for the truth myself, and I found a room full of corpses. Just like how I found out this time; more dead bodies. You know what, Ward? Maybe if you hadn't kept this from me, I wouldn't have gone down there. Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. could have kept me somewhere safe. Maybe Trip would still be more than just a pile of dust," she says, her voice cracking before she can finish.

"What happened to Trip isn't your fault, Skye."

And the sickest part about this is that in the weeks since the incident, that's the first time anyone's told her that.

"Are you afraid of me, Ward?"

"No." _He is, but not in the way she's talking about._

"You should be."

.

.

.

He calls every morning. It's an annoying alarm, especially since she'd just been making progress with her insomnia. Turning her phone off or even putting it on silent wouldn't work, as she needed to be available for her teammates to contact at any given time. She doesn't want to make him worth the effort of buying a new one.

She and Morse spar when the blonde is available for the next week. Bobbi holds back at first, but Skye gives her a pleading look to please, please, please just let her pretend for a while that everything is okay, and she acquiesces. Everything goes smoothly; if anything, it makes Skye calmer. One day, May shows up and tells her that Bobbi is out, and they'll be sparring instead. Skye is still smiling when she's been laid out on her back against the mattress, chest heaving and body sore. As long as she can maintain accident free days like those, she can get things back to normal. No one has said anything about light quakes that occurred during the two times she talked to Ward, so she takes it as a sign that nobody felt anything.

He manages to bring out the burning fire that she tries so hard to put out, so it's all for the best that she stops talking to him. She won't put her team in any more danger. It's shameful enough to admit that in her stupors of loneliness, she gave in just to hear someone talk to her without having to see the hesitation in their eyes, watching every word before they speak in case it sets her off.

But then, everything Ward does is calculated. Every move has an agenda, everything he says is meant to manipulate people into doing what he wants them to. He played her once, and she is determined for that to never happen again.

"Hey, AC," she greets as she knocks on the frame of Coulson's open door, cradling her tablet in her arms. She stands in front of his desk and shows him the screen. "These are patterns I picked up from Project Insight's algorithm. They're set to target a specific category of people, and it's set up in this process of elimination, a dichotomy. I was thinking I could look at where the pattern diverges, at the people who do fit the description of a 'threat' that aren't being targeted."

"And those are probably the people working for Hydra," Coulson concludes for her. "Good. Get right on it, then."

"Right. That I will. Um." She's going to do it. "So, anything else I can do? Field stuff, maybe? Some reconnaissance? Infiltration?"

Coulson sighs and folds his fingers together in front of his desk. The doe-eyed, hopeful expression on her face is one he hasn't seen is so long. He looks as though he feels a little guilty for her situation, and Skye doesn't want that at all. She gets why he has to do this and if she were him, she'd probably be doing the same thing, so it makes her feel guilty in turn for even daring to ask. "I know you're getting restless, Skye, but we still can't risk putting you out in the open. Your powers aren't the type that can be contained, and we can't measure the extent of what will happen if things go wrong. I'm sorry."

She smiles at him and nods. "I get it. Thanks, anyway. I'll give you the intel as soon as I can." He smiles back as comfortingly as he can before she leaves.

She spends the rest of her time holed up in her quarters in front of her laptop, figuring out ways to decrypt the code. Her eyes dart to the screen of her phone for a second. There are six unread messages from a new unknown number. Scrolling through them, she sees that they say the exact same thing.

_I can be useful._

She waits until her phone rings. She holds it against her ear and doesn't say anything. Before she can even get a breath out, he begins speaking, running over his sentences without a pause, as though afraid she could disconnect at any moment.

"I'm sorry. I don't deserve to even ask how you are, and you have every right to cut me out of your life for good. But if you'll just listen to me, I'll tell you everything I know. About Hydra, about the Diviner –I'm not going to hold back anymore. You were right when you said I only give stuff away when there's something in it for me, and what I want is to help you. So please, hear me out. You don't even have to say anything, just listen," he pleads.

Skye chews on her lip and enumerates all the reasons this is a bad idea.

"Start talking, then."

"Hydra's main goal is dominance. Their deal is something beyond machine weaponry. They're obsessed with the supernatural, with evolution, and pushing the boundaries of human capacity. Human experimentation in concentration camps weren't even the half of it. A lot of their information is based on ancient artifacts, records from millennia ago," he explains. "Most of it is alien tech, and they have research facilities set up all over the world. Whitehall was the American leader. Now, the guy you want to be looking for is Wolfgang von Strucker…"

.

.

.

He keeps his promise. Every morning until sunrise, he briefs her on what he knows from his inside information about Hydra, their plans, and their people. She makes notes of the things he says, and when she has questions about certain terms, he patiently explains. Occasionally, they involuntarily begin to brainstorm over what he's saying, making predictions as to what Hydra's next move could be. She gives Coulson a list of places and names that prove to be useful, and he tells her he'll consider a safe Retcon mission with May when the opportunity presents itself, if just so she can stretch her legs a bit.

"The purpose of the Diviners isn't really to destroy. They're containers for this substance; Terrigen Crystals. They release this mist that change a certain type of people into superhuman beings. Whitehall had no idea about their true power, so I got that from eavesdropping on your dad and Raina."

Skye is pacing around her room. Her phone held up between the side of her face and her shoulder as she endeavors to open a cereal box. "They didn't catch you?"

"Well, I didn't really need to hide. Your dad didn't mind me around. We talked a lot while I was there."

"What did you talk about?"

"You, mostly. He asked a lot of questions. Don't worry, it was harmless stuff. Your favorite color, what you looked like, what music you liked, what you liked to eat, if you were eating enough; things like that." Skye stops her munching and swallows hard before replying.

"I see. And did you know he was planning to use the crystals on me?"

The line crackles with the silence. "I had a feeling he would. I didn't know exactly what would happen or that Whitehall would get to you, but I was going to keep you from getting near it, Skye. And then you shot me."

"Are you actually –"

"Which I completely deserved," he adds hastily. Skye decides not to pursue it.

"Do you know where my father is now?"

"No, but I can track him if you really want to know."

"No, it's fine, forget about." Skye isn't about to go looking for him any time soon. He's a dangerous man, but he's been quiet so far. So long as he doesn't go anywhere near the team or doesn't pose any danger to anyone, there would be no need for a second reunion. "He got what he wanted, anyway. Fortunately I still look pretty human. Raina, not so much, but I doubt her creepy ass would mind much."

"You'd still be pretty cute even with blue scales and a tail."

"Ward."

"Okay, okay, moving on."

.

.

.

One day, he sends her a text message. Text messages only appear when the situation is urgent.

_11 pm, if you can._

She doesn't reply, but she waits in her room.

"Problem?"

"Not really. I won't be able to call for a few days, so I thought we could start earlier to get more done. Kara got a lead on something, and we're going to check it out tomorrow."

"Kara?"

"Agent 33's real name," Ward clarifies. "It took a lot of digging, but we were able to find some things about her identity before she was brainwashed. She's got a bone to pick with Hydra."

Skye knits her eyebrows together in disbelief. "So you're telling me that you've partnered up with Agent 33 and are working together to bring down Hydra? That's what you've been up to since Whitehall?"

"Yes."

"Her, I get. You, on the other hand…what reason do you have to hate Hydra? They're pretty much evil incarnate, yeah, but I thought that would pretty much put you guys on the same boat."

"I don't really have a reason to hate them. Honestly, even with everything that's happened, if Garrett hadn't picked me up at the prison, I'd probably still be there. If not, I'd be with my family, without any clue how to defend myself, and I'd probably end up dead either way. I'd rather things have played out the way they did."

"So why get involved?

"I was never Hydra's to begin with. I was loyal to –"

"Garrett. I know," she says. She'd heard it so many times before, as if it makes what he did any less despicable. "That doesn't answer my question."

"I'm loyal to you now."

The thought that she's replaced Garrett, a sociopath by birth and a psychopath by creation, who had manipulated and betrayed the people closest to him, unnerves her.

"Agent 33 was brainwashed. That was something she had no control over. If a brain scan proves that she's cured or whatever, then Coulson will welcome her back with open arms. That's not how it is with you, Ward. You know why everyone hates you so much? It's because they loved you," she says, twisting her knives in his conscience because she wants to hurt him. Ever since she'd found out about his treason, all she'd wanted was to carve into his heart until he felt what she, what they all had to feel. "They would have died for you, but you ended up being the one pointing a gun at their face. If you think this will win our forgiveness, you better forget it.

"I don't want you to forgive me."

"What?" she snaps suddenly, and she doesn't know why that upsets her.

"Fitz has brain damage. Simmons would have drowned. You got shot and almost died," he goes on, and his voice sounds strained when he speaks, as though there are hands at his throat getting tighter and tighter. "Coulson trusted me, and I betrayed everyone. I did those things willingly, and I've accepted that I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I don't deserve forgiveness from any of you, and I wouldn't be able to accept myself if you did."

"You can leave this S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra mess behind and walk away. You can build any identity you want, you can do anything you want. Why haven't you?"

"I'm not going to let them hurt you anymore."

"I don't want you to do anything for me," she tells him, and a brief tremor passes over the building.

"I can't help it, Skye. I need to be fighting for someone, I need someone worth living for." It's strange, how such a tall, dangerous man can sound so small. It makes her forget, for a moment, and think that this is her Grant Ward, the one with the dorky books and strange fondness for West Side Story, the one who liked board games and cooked meals that made her think of home and home was right there, on the Bus with Fitzsimmons, Coulson, May, and him, the one who protected her and taught her how to protect herself. It hurts her instead.

"But that isn't healthy, Ward," she says in spite of herself. "You can't keep living for other people. You can't tie your entire existence into someone else's. You need to start doing things for yourself."

She hears him suck in a breath, and she closes her eyes. He's going to think she cares, and she isn't even sure anymore if he'd be wrong to think so. It makes her feel disgusted at herself, because she'd been determine not to fail anymore, and the first resolution she'd made ever since her change had already begun to crack.

But she can't forgive him. She hasn't, and that's something she is sure of.

Thankfully, he can tell that she regrets what she's said, and he decides to not comment on it. "Anyway, Hydra's got old bases in Japan, and…"

.

.

.

After four days, she gets a call from a new number at ten in the evening. She excuses herself from her conversation with Hunter and slams the door behind her.

"Well, Ward, want to tell me about where you went while –"

"Skye?" At the woman's voice, Skye stops dead of her half-assed alliteration. Her eyes widen in mortification and she can feel her heart beating faster in her ribcage.

"May, I can explain, I swear!" she begins, panic-stricken. _Shit shit shit_, just when she'd been getting things back together. There are no plausible, reasonable explanations as to why she would be in contact with the traitorous scumbag.

The sound of gunshots in the background put her on high alert. This is even worse, but then it doesn't make sense, because May doesn't have an Op that night, she's supposed to be in the room three doors down. Skye is about to ask where she is when she is interrupted.

"This is Agent 33. Ward said he needed to call you, but his phone died, so he gave me your number. I'm going to pass you to him, okay?" She hears more gunshots, a machine gun judging by the speed of the intervals, and then a body part, probably an arm, snapping, then men groaning in pain.

"Hey Skye," he greets her casually, as though he isn't in the middle of a raging battlefield.

"Ward, where the hell are you?"

"Sorry, no time. I'm emailing you some files. They're taking a while to upload," he says, punctuating the end of his sentence with a gunshot. Skye hears the sound of a fist connecting with a jaw, then something, probably the body of a fully-grown beefcake man, getting slammed onto a table.

She has a sudden realization, and it makes her heart drop into her stomach acid. "You couldn't wait until morning."

"Just in case!" Something explodes, but the line is still there so she assumes he's fine.

"Just in case of what, Ward?" she asks, her tone dangerous, daring him to answer.

"In case I don't make it!" there's another explosion, and she hears Agent 33 screaming Ward's name in the background.

"No!" she says furiously.

"Skye, I don't –"

"I _need _you. You still need to give me more data to track what Hydra's planning next," she amends.

"I can't make any promises," he starts, but she cuts him off.

"Don't. You're not allowed to die, asshole, you don't deserve that privilege," she says, and then she hangs up.

Somewhere in a secret facility underneath a dense forest, Agent 33 is shouting at Grant Ward to "Wipe that fucking stupid grin on your face, you look like a baby who just shit himself! God, Ward, we're getting shot at, we're going to die!"

But he's not going to let that happen, because she needs him. He knows, because she told him so.

* * *

><p>AN: This was just meant to be a oneshot, but then I did a rewatch and the two of them just ruined my life again at an even greater scale. Thing is, Christmas break is over, so I thought I'd post the first one just so I would feel obligated to finish it even with school hounding at me. This is either going to be two parts or three parts. The next ones will hopefully have more legit Skyeward and Skye working on her powers. I say hopefully not because I don't know what I'm putting, but I hope to god I finish.

Thank you for taking the time to read my first AoS fic! I swear, getting into this series last month was both the best and worst gift ever. I'd love to hear what you thought about this piece in the form of a review!


End file.
